Use a custom-made jig to add rod holders to your boat

Many boaters express fear about cutting and drilling holes to add boat accessories. Usually, my response is “Don’t worry: Your boat is full of holes already.” If you want the GPS, the stereo, the swim step or the transducer, you’ve got to drill a hole. Adding rod holders for boats is no exception, but they require a twist.

Since rod holders are angled, the hole they fit through must be angled as well. When a spinning hole saw hits the surface at an angle, it wants to “walk” off to the side — chewing up the pretty fiberglass in the process. Worse, you could lose control of the saw and break your wrist because the drill will turn and buck as the saw bites in. So you have to control this sharp, madly spinning device while maintaining a constant angle so that the rod holder fits through the covering board or gunwale and its flange lies flush when installed.

Complete Guide To Installing Rodholders

The best way I have found to do this — and I have been installing rod holders for boats for over 30 years — is by the use of a simple jig that anyone can make. A crusty old salt named Bill, from Bill’s Boats, Port Washington, New York, showed it to me back in the 1970s. I have used various versions ever since. For this article, I cobbled up a quick one to provide you with a a step-by-step guide to building your own. It’s not the only way to make such a jig, but its basic premise of holding the saw at the correct angle, and in the right plane side to side, ensures a safe and secure rod holder installation. You don’t need to worry about your boat’s finish, and there’s no need to break out the medical kit.

It took me an hour to build the one shown here, complete with some cosmetic flaws. Even if you’ve never built rod holders for boats before, and you don’t have a shop full of tools at the ready, it’s no more than a pleasant evening’s task.

If you think building a jig is cheating, I suggest you speak to a pro. Any carpenter or boat rigger worth his tool chest will tell you he uses jigs and patterns at every opportunity. “By eye” is the method for hacks.

Quick Tip: If you can’t get a purchase for a clamp in the cockpit, pipe clamps can be used to bear against gunwale and chine to secure the jig.

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